HIGHLIGHTS

The poll panel will hear all the factions before announcing its decision.

The Election Commission's deadline to submit documents is on September 29.

The EPS-OPS camp filed affidavits from several states and union territories.

The Election Commission of India

HIGHLIGHTS

The poll panel will hear all the factions before announcing its decision.

The Election Commission's deadline to submit documents is on September 29.

The EPS-OPS camp filed affidavits from several states and union territories.

The Election Commission will hear the case of AIADMK's 'two leaves' symbol on Friday. The poll panel will hear all the factions before announcing its decision.

Till August 21, there were four claimants to the 'two leaves' symbol of Tamil Nadu's ruling party. However, with the merger of Chief Minister E Palanisamy (EPS) and O Panneerselvam (OPS) factions, the number of claimants has been reduced to three.

Ousted AIADMK leader TTV Dhinakaran and former chief minister Jayalalithaa's niece Deepa Jayakumar are the other two claimants for the party's symbol.

The Election Commission's hearing comes after the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court instructed it to give a decision regarding the disputed frozen party symbol by October 31.

All the three factions have presented affidavits and other documents to prove their claim. They will further argue their case on Friday.

Though the EPS-OPS faction is the strongest claimant to the 'two leaves' symbol, the Election Commission will also have to hear out Dhinakaran and Deepa before announcing its decision.

The tussle to claim the AIADMK's symbol among rival factions of the party has reached a crescendo. The Election Commission's deadline to submit documents in favour of their claims over the symbol ended on September 29.

The EPS-OPS camp and Dinarakan faction have been firing salvos against each other. While the EPS-OPS group is fully confident of winning the claim over the two leaves symbol, the Dinakaran camp termed the former's affidavits bogus and appealed to the poll panel to conduct a probe to ascertain the authenticity of the documents.

The TTV Dhinakaran faction has submitted over a thousand documents. The EPS-OPS camp has filed affidavits from across several states and union territories, including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra, New Delhi and Andaman and Nicobar.

Their affidavits include 115 from their party MLAs, 44 from MPs, 52 from district secretaries, 126 from town secretaries and more than 1,200 from village secretaries. These affidavits reached the Election Commission's office in a truck.